Sunday, 5 August 2012

Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest - 2007

The Swedish Final was held on March 10th at the Globe Theatre in Stockholm, hosted by Kristian Luuk. The winner was chosen by regional juries (50%) and televoting (50%) - The Ark were the favourite with both.

The 5 Swedish Semi-Finals were also hosted by Kristian Luuk. In the first 4 semi-finals there were two rounds of televoting - the first to select the top 5 and the second to select the top 2 songs to qualify directly for the final and the 3rd and 4th placed songs that went forward to the 5th semi-final. In the 5th semi-final songs competed in groups of pairs. The most popular song from each pairing was chosen by televoting, then the winners of pairs 1 & 2 competed against each other to qualify for the final as did the winners of pairs 3 & 4.

Some familiar faces returned to Melodifestivalen this year; among them Eurovision 1989 representative Tommy Nilsson, 1966 representative Svante Thuresson, 2003 representative Jessica Andersson, and 1996 representative Nanne Grönvall. Andreas Lundstedt also went to Eurovision in 2006 for Switzerland.

The Ark won with the song The Worrying Kind which was written by Ola Salo.

Sweden were considered bookmakers' favorites before the contest, but
finished in a disappointing 18th place out of 24. They received 51
points, of which 42 came from their Scandinavian neighbours.

***

The Ark was a Swedish glam rock band formed in 1991 by Mikael Jepson (better known as Jepson), Lasse (Leari) Ljungberg and Ola Salo (being only fourteen years old at the time). In 1996 The Ark released an EP featuring four songs, of those Racing With The Rabbits being the most known. The EP gained very little success in both critical and commercial sense. Martin Axén officially joined the band in 1997, and Sylvester Schlegel in 1999. In late 2005, Jens Andersson joined The Ark as an official member. He had at that point played live with the band for several years.

Ola salo was the main song-writer of the group and his lyrics have sometimes been seen controversial. For example, the 2002 single Father of a Son is about homosexuals’ right to adopt. In October 2006, the band was criticized by members of the U.S. public for some controversial comments referring to the September 11, 2001 attacks that were apparently part of the joking banter between songs as the band performed at the opening festivities for the new Swedish embassy in Washington, D.C.

The Ark participated in a bunch of top festival all over the countries where its music has been spread, and was the only band ever who performed at Hultsfred's festival - the most important summer festival of the entire northern Europe - each year of career. The Ark also performed in the Melodifestivalen 2007 with the song The Worrying Kind. The song won the contest after capturing both the popular vote and the jury's vote. The song was Sweden’s Eurovision Song Contest 2007 entry, and is also included in The Ark’s fourth album Prayer for the Weekend, released in April 2007. Despite being a bookmaker favorite, it finished in 18th place (out of 24)

In 2006 The Ark toured the UK acting as the warm-up band for The Darkness.

One of Us Is Gonna Die Young was used in the 2007 snowboarding video, Picture This from Mack Dawg Productions for Seth Huot and Andreas Wiig's video part, also was it used for the Sam Blenkinsop and Philip Polc Section of the FOX Racing Shox 2007 Sequel. Let Your Body Decide was used in the 2010 film Super starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page. Their all time hit remains being the 2000s manifesto for one's freedom in life, It Takes A Fool To Remain Sane. It gained massive radio play especially in Sweden and Italy.

On December 8, 2010 the band announced that they would be breaking up after the release of their greatest hits compilation, Arkeology, and the following spring and summer tours. Arkeology contained two new songs, Breaking Up With God and The Apocalypse Is Over. The Ark won numerous awards during their 20 years together and were lauded as the most successful Swedish band since ABBA, even being recognized by MTV as the most influential northern group of the last 10 years. Ola Salo and Jepson appeared once in Expressen, a Swedish newspaper, where they were referred to as two of the 10 most important personalities in Scandinavia. They made their last concert at the amusement park Gröna Lund in Stockholm 16 September 2011. The crowd was counted up to around 15.000 people and doors had to be closed long before the concert started.